BRICS Culture Ministers to meet in Moscow
June 16, 2015, 10:49 am

Dancers of China’s Beijing Modern Dance Company perform as a part of the events held during the Chinese Culture Festival, in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 26, 2012 [Xinhua]

10 delegates from each of the BRICS- Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa- will be working on a draft inter-governmental agreement on cultural cooperation.

Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky will be hosting the gathering in Moscow which aims to increase cultural traffic between the cross-continental bloc.

This grouping has opened up new political and economic debates that center around the recently launched financial instruments like the BRICS Bank and the $100 billion contingency reserve fund.

The five Culture Ministers in their meeting on Monday will aim to renew discussions on cultural cooperation between the countries that are host to more than 3 billion people.

The BRICS members are all developing or newly industrialised countries.

Cultural integration of these fast-growing economies today face challenges that also ties up with the intra-bloc trade constraints– trade tariffs, immigration limits and visas.

Many of the BRICS countries, though, have civilizational links, especially China-India and Russia-China.

“Cultural exchanges have an irreplaceable role in enhancing the friendship between the people of our countries. Confucius, Lao Tzu and other classical Chinese thinkers are familiar to the Russian people. Chinese revolutionaries of the older generation were deeply influenced by Russian culture. Those of our generation also read many of the classics of Russian literature. When I was young, I read the words of literary giants like Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, which made me feel the charm of Russian literature. Cultural exchanges between China and Russia have a solid foundation,” noted Chinese President Xi Jinping during a visit to Moscow in 2013.

Earlier last month, BRICS leaders joined Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russia staged a grand celebration in Moscow to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the country’s defeating Nazi Germany in World War Two.

This was in stark contrast to the absence of Western leaders who stayed away to protest what they called ‘Russian interference in Ukraine’.

As Russia’s relationship with the United States and its European allies grows worse, its ties to BRICS have never been closer.

The Russian city of Ufa will host the 7^th BRICS Leaders Summit on 8-9 July.

TBP